The Scene of the Crime…….

I got a call from one of my favorite folks at Nikon, Sharlie Douglass,  she is the sales rep for the Eastern half of Texas.  I always enjoy working with Sharlie, she is a former NPS Tech Rep, and really knows her stuff.  She called to ask me if I would pinch hit for a tech that is our of the country at the Olympics, an assignment I has asked to be set free from.  The Texas Legislature’s photo group are getting new Nikons and needed a little overview and some training, so I will fly down to Austin tomorrow and help them out.  The great news for me, other than working with Sharlie, is Austin is the home of Hut’s Hamburgers, one of the very best in America.  It has been several years since I’ve been there and I can’t wait to see if they are as good as I remember!

I’m betting they will rise in the rankings, I’m a more seasoned cheeseburger critic now than I was then!  I will definitely get some pictures and do a review.

I found a great book reviewing burgers across American an so far I concur on many of the authors picks, we have raved about some of the same spots, I now keep the book in my iPad for reference as a travel.  I can highly recommend the book!  Which brings me to an interesting email I got some time back.  The writer said they admitted they really enjoyed the reviews and the Cheeseburgers in Paradise Blog, but they wondered how I got so enamored with burgers??!!  I figured some other folks might have the same question, and then thousands out there could care less, but for those want to know here goes!

When my brother Homer and I were growing up in Harlan, Kentucky my Dad sometimes was in charge of supper and he made a great Cheeseburger, as I went to school and later got out of college it was just always one thing I really liked. Later in life when Sherelene and I  formed a company called the Great American Photography Weekends I started to travel extensively to run workshops all over America.  Back then I would drove from Corbin, Kentucky to every place we did workshops, consequently I drove over 70,000 miles a year and was away from home over 200 days each year.  I really missed my family so I created fun games to pass the time; I collected funny road sign images, looked for all the brilliant color for color sake images I saw along the road, and started to search for the “perfect” cheeseburger.   It became a habit to ask friends in different town where the best burger was and then I would drop by those places to see how I like it.  I had a newsletter that went out to the mailing list of the GAPW customers and I would, from time to time, review a particularly good cheeseburger.  The more I did it the more I enjoyed the process of learning about the people and places and the history behind some of the long time favorite burgers.   People started knowing me as “that cheeseburger guy” so more recommendations kept coming in. When I met Jim Begley and we started to teach workshops together and travel to many Americana locations more great burgers started to pop up!  Now it has taken on a life of it’s own.  I guess it’s better than hanging out in bars!  But hey a few bars have been good burger locations.

So if you were wondering, there is the story, and if you weren’t, well I’ll try to get back to something more relevant soon, but expect a splash tomorrow night, or Thursday about Hut’s!

the pilgrim